


Pell Mell

by theghostsofeurope (baronvonehren)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF!John, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 14:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baronvonehren/pseuds/theghostsofeurope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John deliriously watches as Sherlock’s chest rises and falls; the tubes of his nasal cannula are carefully laid about his head, tucked behind his ears, nearly hidden by his dark curls. He feels out of place, out of body, a vague feeling that he has seen this before but from another perspective.</p><p>He is in Afghanistan again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pell Mell

John deliriously watches as Sherlock's chest rises and falls; the tubes of his nasal cannula are carefully laid about his head, tucked behind his ears, nearly hidden by his dark curls. He feels out of place, out of body, a vague feeling that he has seen this before but from another perspective.

He is in Afghanistan again.

The tension is thick in his gut, sustainable, filling.

The fist connected with his gut and the black bag was thrown over his head. Panicked at first but then a concentrated sort of being, he sat silently in the back of an expensive rental car—it smelt new and of leather—as he was taken to only-god-knows.

It smelt of chlorine. His jaw twitched and a voice addressed him—so soft sounding. “Ah, John,” he couldn't quite place it but he seemed familiar. It made his stomach roll.

John Watson was calm as he met his flatmate, Sherlock Holmes, dressed to the nines in explosives. “Evening,” he parroted, the voice lisping in his ear lightly.

A question was in Sherlock's steely eyes, shock and something that he would later identify as fear.

 _Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot._ He blinked, hoping—knowing—that Sherlock understood him. His throat bobbed weakly.

Sherlock's expression didn't change but he turned, rigidly, knowing. Yes, of course he knew. It was all John could do not to panic as the voice in his earpiece urged him on. “This is a turn up, isn't it, Sherlock?” He swallowed again, nervously.

“John...what the hell--”

He remained cool, robotic. Indifferent in appearance. He wanted to shriek and rip the bombs from him or to throw himself in the pool. Anything. John couldn't stand the sense of helplessness. “Bet you never saw this coming,” he grimaced. _Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot._ He opened his jacket, still blinking in Morse code, revealing the bombs. “What. Would you like me,” a red dot appeared on his chest and flicked from left to right and back, “to make him say. Next?”

Despite all of John's hopes, Sherlock advanced, casting glances at shadows and looking for the sniper. Watson's heart pounded in his ears. “Gottle o' geer. Gottle o' geer. Gottle o' geer.” His voice broke and he faltered.

“Stop it.” Sherlock's voice was heavily veiled agitation.

The man, Jim Moriarty, eventually revealed himself. Unimpressive stature in a well-tailored suit. It sat poorly with John, who remained silent throughout his senseless _flirting_ with Sherlock. 

Later, he found himself hurriedly shouting, “Sherlock, run!” and clinging to Moriarty like a stubborn old bulldog. “If your sniper pulls that trigger, Mr. Moriarty, then we both go up.”

In his mind's eye, John could see the war—screams that had worn down a voice to the point of gasping and cries for 'mum, mum'. He had so selflessly leapt upon a grenade, his stomach was open and there was nothing he could do but ease his passing. He was up to his elbows in bowels, hands slipping around trying to find the rips and tears and fix them but he was too far gone to put the red back in.

Moriarty had left them and Sherlock had tore the coat and vest from him, nearly speechless, movements quick and jerky and all too fast. John slumped against the lockers, leg spasming, winded. And then he had returned.

Sherlock had shot the explosives.

Afghanistan had leaked from his head suddenly as he was struck, full on, in the chest by something that seemed to have substance. A shockwave of force, and he fell, feeling like his ribcage had been wholly smashed.

The pool shuddered, partially collapsing inward, waves rising up to slop over the sides.

Dust rose despite the humidity of the pool and the fire sprinklers erupted in fountains of water—if John had been capable of thinking at that point he would have marveled at the stupidity.

“Sherlock,” he shouted, coughing, hearing a groan and nothing more. “Sherlock!” 

He was pinned, a partitioning wall, as well as tile and a great deal of the light fixture above, had dropped on him, smashing his lower half beneath it. Shrapnel was lodged in his chest, his arm, god knows where else.

“Sherlock!” John knelt beside him, his thumbs cradling the sockets of his eyes. They were wide in shock and pain. His chest spasmed as if to cough but couldn't. A white knuckled hand gripped him, the other arm trapped beneath the heavy debris. He was shocked, his pulse quick, breaths shallow, and he was disoriented. John panicked and worried for his spine.

He began to lift away the wreckage. Then there was the sound of straining steel. The whole roof was collapsing.

Something snapped within John Watson at this point.

His entire existence became a pointed thing. Breathing was inconsequential, hearing was useless—suddenly it was as if certain stimuli no longer existed or he no longer had the capability to understand them. There was only one thing left in the world: to lift and to live.

The pain in his shoulder no longer existed, nor did the quaking of his hands or the psychosomatic pain in his leg. His eyes were blown wide as he slipped his hands underneath the rubble to the best of his ability.

He shrieks, not a dignified sound, not a human sound. John Watson shrieks as though he has tapped into something purely primal. The muscles in his neck bulge and he sees red—the desert sands whip about and he is lifting Sgt.Evans by one arm, throwing him over his shoulder, and running. Bullets pepper the plaster houses behind him, he exists only to lift and to live. Heat rolls down his back, sweat or blood from a severed limb, John Watson can make no distinction.

His limbs shake, skin flushed, and he can see nothing but Sherlock and the rubble, he can hear nothing, the world is empty and this is the only thing that exists—this transplanted Afghanistan.

The rubble lifts, and he holds it, sweat pouring down his arms and back and shoulders and brow, with the bulk of his shoulder. He can no longer feel. Feeling is impertinent. He cannot remember dragging Sherlock out, lifting him, and running, running as though he is being chased by the Taliban, to safety.

Now here, in the hospital, he is lingering in Afghanistan. The world still turns, the beep of an electrocardiogram and the measured intervals of the oxygen regulator break the silence. Despite this, despite the normality, the world, everything, seems to be falling apart.

Sherlock stirs and he moves to stroke his wrist delicately, still watching the sands behind his eyes. “You're an idiot,” he mouths distantly.


End file.
